The kitchen was clean but cluttered. A small stack of dirty dishes filled one side of the sink, and someone had forgotten to put away the bread and peanut butter after making a sandwich.
“Excuse the mess,” Michelle said as she pulled another mug from a cupboard. “I didn’t have a lot of time before the party to clean up last night, and I slept in this morning.”
“It’s not messy. It just looks like a family lives here.”
Michelle smiled as she filled Elena’s mug. “We tend to live a lot messier than most. My girls are pretty active.”
“How old are they?”
Michelle handed the coffee to Elena. “Seven and ten. Cream or sugar?”
“Sure. If you have them.”
Michelle laughed again. “Are you kidding? Only a psycho drinks it black.”
Elena’s shoulders lost some of their coiled tension. Michelle was a lot more relatable than Elena realized.
“Shall we sit?” Michelle gestured toward the living room just beyond the kitchen. The house was a wide, open-concept style, which was probably good for a mom. She could cook dinner and still see the kids.
Elena followed Michelle to a long sectional couch and sat down on the end opposite her. Various toys were strewn across the floor, and a suspicious cat stared from behind the leg of a decorative table.
“What is your cat’s name?”
“Dolphin.”
At Elena’s questioning glance, Michelle laughed. “The girls named him. They thought it was hilarious.”
“Vlad loves cats.”
Michelle tilted her head. “Yes, he has told me that before.”
Elena looked around the room again. As much as it pained her to admit it, Vlad would fit in so nicely here. Michelle’s house was soft and homey. Cozy and welcoming. Mismatched pillows decorated the couch, big fluffy things that would be perfect for a nap on a football Sunday and for cuddling on cold winter nights.
“Do your kids like Vlad?”
Michelle’s coffee mug stalled halfway to her mouth. “Um, yes, of course. I mean, they don’t know him very well, but—”
“Vlad is very good with children. He will make an excellent father someday.”
“I’m sure he will be . . . someday.”
“You can tell a lot about a man by how he treats animals. And Vlad is so gentle with animals.”
“I suppose that is true.”
“Are your girls asleep?”
“No. They are with their father this weekend.”
“What—what happened with your husband?” Elena shook her head and winced. “I’m sorry. Forget I asked that. We barely know each other. Sometimes I forget that not everyone is an interview subject.”
Michelle let out a quiet laugh. “It’s okay. Really. I don’t mind talking about it anymore. And frankly, I don’t have a lot of female friends my age, so it’s kind of nice to talk to someone, I guess.”
More tension eased from her shoulders. “I don’t have a lot of friends either.”
Of any age. She wondered if Michelle noticed the omission. Except for Vlad, Elena had never had any real friends. Her father’s job made it too risky for her to venture outside the tiny circle he trusted when she was growing up. While other kids her age were out having fun, playing sports, and dating, she was at home or at Vlad’s.
“My ex-husband,” Michelle said, inhaling. She let it out slowly. “He’s a lawyer and worked, works, long hours. I have a degree in library science, but I was working part-time because of the kids and his hours. I came home one day not feeling well, and he was here. And he was not alone.”
“He was cheating on you?”
“In our bed.”
Elena swore in Russian.
Michelle tipped her mug in Elena’s direction. “I have no idea what that means, but ditto.”
“It means he is a pig.”
“Yes. Very much.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I discovered during the divorce that the woman I found him in bed with was not the first. He’d been cheating me on since our first year of marriage. I got the house, went back to work full-time at the Nashville Public Library, and the girls and I are making a new life.”
“You are very strong.”
“I have to be for my girls.”
“You are alone in Nashville?”
Michelle’s face turned compassionate, as if Elena had revealed some kind of hidden subtext in her question. “No. Not at all. I mean, my family lives two hours away, so they can’t help much on a day-to-day basis. But we get by. We have amazing friends.”
“So does Vlad. He has built a very good life here. I’m—” Elena bit her lip. “I’m glad you’re part of that.”
Elena sipped her coffee to cover the tremble of her bottom lip.
“Elena,” Michelle said gently. Her tone suggested a lot of practice dealing with stubborn children. “I think I know why you’re here.”
“You do?”
Michelle nodded and set her mug on the coffee table. “So, I think I should just be straight with you.”
“It’s okay,” Elena said, jumping in before Michelle could continue. “I know . . . I know about you and Vlad.”
“Yeah, see, that’s what I think I should be straight about. There is no me and Vlad.”
“Maybe not now, but it’s obvious there is something between you two—”
“Elena, there is nothing between Vlad and me. I like him very much. He is one of the sweetest men I’ve ever known, and maybe there is a part of me that might be tempted to pursue something with him, because who wouldn’t? But there’s just one massive problem.”
“What?”
“You.”
Elena looked over. “No. You have my blessing.” The words cut like broken glass, but she had to say them. “You are smart and sweet and . . . you are actually what he wants and deserves. I won’t get in your way.”
Michelle pressed her hand to the cushion between them. “You misunderstand. It’s not that I’m worried about you being in the way.”
“Then what are you worried about?”
“The inconvenient fact that he is and will always be in love with you.”
If Michelle had said those words twenty-four hours ago, Elena would have insisted they weren’t true. Now, she didn’t know what to believe. Not after all the things he said to her last night. But there was something she knew with certainty still. “It’s too late.”
“No, it’s not.”
“I’m leaving tomorrow.”
That set Michelle back. Her mouth opened and closed before she let out a disappointed sigh. “Why, Elena?” Her voice was at once sorrowful and recriminatory.
“Because some things became very clear last night. I’m hurting him by being here. It’s better for him if I go back to Chicago now.”
“But do you want to go?”
Elena sloshed hot coffee on her hand.
“Is that a no?”
Elena sucked on the burned portion of her thumb and realized she was too exhausted to do anything but tell the truth. “No, I don’t want to go.”
“Thank God,” Michelle breathed. “I was afraid I was going to have to beat you with a giant zucchini.”
“It’s barely been more than a week! How can I already be this confused? How can I already be reconsidering everything that I’ve been working toward? What does that mean?”
Michelle shrugged. “That you’re human. That love is complicated.”
Elena set her mug on the coffee table and stood, too agitated to remain seated. She began to pace. “I feel like I’ve been walking around my whole life with smudged glasses and have finally cleaned them or something. But instead of seeing things better, I’m just bumping into walls I never knew were there.”
“Starting over is never easy.”
“I’m not starting ov
er.” Her words came out like a petulant child insisting she wasn’t tired.
“Look, I know a little about what you’re going through. It’s hard to redefine yourself after so long of seeing yourself as one way. I was his wife. That’s who I was. I never stopped to ask myself if I was happy in that role. If I even recognized myself in that role. I think that’s why I ignored all the warning signs for so long. It’s not that I loved him so deeply that I couldn’t imagine not being with him. It was that I had lost touch with myself so deeply that I couldn’t imagine who I was without him. Redefining yourself is scary.”
Elena understood that on such a deep level that she felt tears prick the back of her eyes.
“When my ex-husband moved out, I spent about three weeks in this fog, you know? And then one day, I got out of the shower, all wet and naked. And I realized . . . I’m clean. I was really, really clean. I’d washed away all that disappointment and broken promises. I didn’t get dressed for an hour. I just walked around my house bare naked. I’ve never felt so free.”
“But—” Elena returned on the couch and faced Michelle. She shook her head at the last second and took a drink of her coffee.
“But what? You can ask me anything.”
“When you were first together . . . you loved him, right?”
“I did. I really did.”
“So, what went wrong?”
“He went wrong. I’m not saying I was a perfect wife or that I didn’t contribute to the problems in our marriage. But in the end, he just couldn’t stop chasing something that I could never give him.”
Something sour sprouted in Elena’s stomach and began a slow crawl up her throat. “What was he chasing?”
“I don’t think he ever really thought he was good enough. It makes me sad to think about it now, because he was so talented and smart. He had so much to offer, but somewhere inside him, something was broken. Something told him he always had to be better, make more money, chase the next big thing, the next big win. He forgot to appreciate what he had. And for so long, I let him run and chase those things. I thought I was happy to run along beside him. Until I realized I wasn’t beside him. We weren’t in the race together. He was running ahead, leaving me behind, and there was nothing I could do or say to make him slow down. It took me a long time to realize it wasn’t my job to convince him I was the prize worth fighting for.”
Elena felt every word like a thousand tiny pinpricks.
Michelle must have seen something in her face, because she rested a reassuring hand on Elena’s arm. “Elena, you and Vlad are not my ex-husband and me.”
“But I’ve been chasing something, too, and leaving him behind.”
“But I’m willing to bet that it’s not because you don’t love him.”
It’s because I do. Elena looked at her lap. “He deserves better than me.”
“He has a house full of romance novels that suggests he would disagree with that statement.”
Elena lifted her head. “Romance novels? What are you talking about?”
“The book club he has with his friends,” Michelle said. Her eyes widened. “Wait. You don’t know about that?”
Elena blinked.
“I just assumed you knew,” Michelle said apologetically.
“Vlad and his friends read romance novels? Like, as a joke?”
“Far from it,” Michelle said. “They’re super serious about it. They read them because they think it will make them better husbands and lovers and people. He seriously has never told you?”
“There’s a lot we’ve never told each other.”
“Elena, he joined the club for you.”
“F-for me?”
“He wanted to figure out how to make you happy and come back to him.”
Out of nowhere, tears sprang into her eyes. Elena leaped to her feet and turned away from Michelle, blinking rapidly to fight them off. It was no use. Twin tears leaked down her cheeks.
“Oh shit,” Michelle said, rising. She instantly wrapped her arms around Elena from behind. “Don’t cry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“When did he join the book club?”
“A few years ago, I think.”
A few years? “He never told me. Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Maybe it’s time to get to the bottom of that and a lot of other things,” Michelle said soothingly, tightening her embrace. “Everything is going to be okay.”
The words were simple but so, so ironic. Vlad had hugged her almost the exact same way when she saw him after her father disappeared, and he’d said the exact same words. It’s going to be okay.
Michelle gave Elena a moment to collect herself before patting her shoulder. “Can you wait in here for a second?”
Elena’s eyes tracked Michelle’s rise. “Where are you going?”
“To call in reinforcements.”
Elena’s eye began to twitch. “Wh-what kind of reinforcements?”
Michelle smiled. “I promise, everyone is on your side.”
“No. Claud hates me. She put a hex on me.”
“She will come around as soon as I fill her in.”
Elena rose to her feet to follow Michelle from the living room. Michelle pulled her cell phone from a multi-device charging station in the kitchen.
“Michelle, please,” Elena said. “I know what you’re trying to do, and I . . . I am so touched. But Vlad doesn’t want me to stay. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t.”
Michelle burst out laughing as if Elena had just told the funniest joke she’d ever heard. She put the phone to her ear. A moment later, she said, “Can you come over? She’s here.”
Elena gulped as Michelle met her eyes.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Michelle said, “but she just told me I have her blessing to date her husband.”
Another moment passed, and Michelle ended the call. A glint in her eye preceded a giggly little clap. “I’m so glad you came here this morning. We have so much work to do.”
“But it doesn’t matter. I’m leaving.”
“Are you really, though?”
“I—I have a plane ticket.”
“Doesn’t mean you have to use it.”
The front door burst open, bringing with it a gust of the west wind and a creepy-crawly feeling along the back of her neck.
“Where is she?” Claud stormed in with a general’s determination. She was trailed by Linda and Andrea, good little foot soldiers.
“In here,” Michelle said calmly. Elena fought the urge to stand behind her for protection.
“For God’s sake, girl,” Claud said, huffing and out of breath. “It’s about damn time one of you got your head out of your ass.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Vlad smelled bacon.
That was impossible, though. Elena was gone. She’d taken her things and driven away in his car last night. And even though he had known it would happen eventually, had always known she would one day leave, it gutted him. Just like he knew it would.
Vlad threw an arm over his eyes and prayed for sleep to drag him back under. His stomach warned of a punishing day of retribution for last night’s whiskey binge. The bizarre bacon smell wasn’t helping.
A quiet noise on the floor drew his gaze to the right.
He blinked. Rose up on his elbows. Blinked again.
A chicken was in his room.
A chicken in a diaper.
Vlad sat up fully and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. But when he looked again, the chicken was still there. She walked slowly near his dresser, beak pecking at something she’d found on the floor.
Dear God, he’d broken his brain last night. He was officially seeing things.
“Oh, good. You’re awake.”
Vlad nearly jumped out of his skin. Mack stood at his bedroom door holding a tray of
food. “Brought you a friend,” he said, nodding at the chicken as he walked in. He set the tray on the nightstand. Curls of steam rose from a mug of tea and a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and cut-up fruit.
“Is that Hazel?” Vlad could barely speak over the sandpaper of his throat.
“Yep. These are her eggs you’re about to eat too.”
Hazel was Vlad’s favorite chicken. Probably not everyone in the world had a favorite chicken, but Vlad did. She was from a farm outside the city where Mack’s wife had once lived and worked, and when Vlad was there one time, he and Hazel had bonded because a mean rooster named Randy had been attacking her.
Vlad held out his arms. Mack bent, scooped up the hen, and deposited her on Vlad’s lap. Hazel cooed and settled down with her legs tucked beneath her. Vlad ran his hands over her soft feathers until the hen’s eyes closed. She was a good chicken. Vlad bit his lip to keep it from trembling and cleared his throat. “What time is it?”
“Almost noon.”
Elena was probably already on a plane back to Chicago by now. Or maybe she was driving his car. Either way, she was far, far away.
“Malcolm, Del, Noah, and Colton will be up in a few minutes,” Mack said, reaching for the chicken. “You need to eat.”
“I am not sure I can.” Vlad pressed a hand to his stomach.
“Give it a try. You need to soak up the damage from last night.”
Vlad pulled the tray to his lap, studied the food, and opted to start with the tea. “Elena is going back to Chicago,” he said.
Mack set Hazel on the floor. “We know.”
“How do you know?”
“She texted Colton to ask him to check on you.”
She was still watching out for him. Even after everything they’d said to each other last night. His stomach clenched, and not because of his gastrointestinal sensitivity. This was pure mental anguish.
The rest of the guys came in a few moments later. Vlad braced himself for the cross-check. The yelling about what an idiot he was for what happened at the party and for letting Elena leave.
Isn't It Bromantic? Page 20